Waters Advances to Mountain Regionals Round of 16

LAS VEGAS, Nev. – Senior Shaun Waters went 2-0 on Thursday on day two of the USTA/ITA Mountain Regional Championships, which included an upset of the 16th-seeded player in the draw to advance to Friday's singles main draw round of 16. His wins were the only singles victories of the day for the Northern Arizona men's tennis team, although the Lumberjacks were able to snag a pair of consolation doubles wins after both NAU pairs fell in the main draw second round.

Waters first defeated Idaho's Matt Oddonetto easily, 6-2, 6-2, in his first match of the day to advance to the third round. There, he faced Boise State's Scott Sears, the 16th-seeded player, and took the first set. Sears would follow with a second set victory to force a deciding third set where Waters would take down Sears, 6-4, 3-6, 6-3, for the upset.

His two wins eased the losses suffered by senior Patrick Schimmelbauer and junior Dominic Bermudez. By virtue of winning on Wednesday, Schimmelbauer joined Waters in the second round of the main draw, but could not advance further, dropping a 6-3, 7-6, decision to BYU's Keaton Cullimore. He then fell into the consolation draw where he would lose his second match of the day in three sets to Weber State's Ryan Garner. Bermudez also competed in the consolation draw, but he also fell to a member of Weber State's squad, Todd Fought, in straight sets.

Thursday's action began with doubles play where the two Lumberjack doubles teams aimed to advance to the round of 16. However after each duo won their respective first round matches, both dropped their second round matches to seeded-teams. Schimmelbauer and Bermudez fell to the ninth-seeded team from BYU of Travis Fillmore and Francis Sargeant, while Waters and sophomore Kester Black were defeated by Slim Hamza and Devin Lane, the sixth-seeded team from Utah. Both teams responded with victories in the consolation bracket to wrap up the day and will move on to Friday's consolation third round with berths in the consolation quarterfinals on the line.

To advance to the singles quarterfinals, Waters will need to pull off a second straight upset when he takes on Utah's Dmytro Mamedov, the third-seeded player, at 10 a.m. on Friday. Should Waters win, he will play his quarterfinals match at 2 p.m. The two doubles teams will compete at 6 p.m. with Black and Waters taking on Oddonetto and Cristobal Ramos of Idaho and Bermudez and Schimmelbauer facing Kenny Doff and Prithiv Sivasubramaniam of Montana State.